94 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 13T 



near Lake Charles who had belonged to this town, and collected a 

 considerable vocabulary from them, which, along with a vocabulary 

 of Eastern Atakapa obtained by Martin Duralde and a list of words 

 from Akokisa taken down by the French captain Berenger, has been 

 published in Bulletin 108 of the Bureau of American Ethnology 

 (Gatschet and Swanton, 1932). A sketch of a number of Louisiana 

 Indians belonging to several tribes made by A. de Batz at New Orleans 

 in 1735 includes an Atakapa in the ancient dress (pi. 3). A few of the 

 survivors of the old town were living in 1907 and 1908 when the writer 

 visited that part of the state (pi. 4, fig. 1), but all are now dead. 



Atakapa population. — For the Atakapa alone the figures given 

 above for enlistments in Galvez' forces by the Eastern Atakapa, viz, 

 60+120, and the figure for all Louisiana Atakapa furnished by Sibley 

 in 1805, that is, 50, are all we have. My own original estimate of the 

 population of this linguistic group, exclusive of the Opelousa, was 

 3,500, which I am now inclined to regard as too high in spite of the 

 immense extent of country covered by them, and I even question 

 whether the same is not true of Mooney's more modest estimate, about 

 1,000 less. 



ATASI 



The name of an old Muskogee town historically associated with the 

 Tukabahchee and Kealedji and with a history paralleling the latter : 

 70-80 warriors in 1740-1800 ; 358 souls in 1832. 



AVOYEL 



A small tribe near the present Marksville, La., and on the lower 

 course of Eed River below the Rapides. Their name, which probably 

 signifies "Stone People," or rather "Flint People," indicates that they 

 were active as makers of or traders in arrow points, or at least traders 

 in the raw material. In 1699 Iberville was given the Mobilian name 

 of this tribe (Tassanak Okla) as the name of Red River, and next 

 year he met some of the Indians themselves. They are again noted 

 by St. Denis in 1714 and La Harpe in 1719, and Du Pratz tells us that 

 they acted as middlemen in providing a market for horses and cattle 

 plundered by western tribes from the Spaniards. Their name appears 

 in 1764, in conjunction with those of the Ofo, Tunica, and Choctaw, as 

 participants in an attack upon a British regiment ascending Red River, 

 and in 1767 they were still said to have had a village near the "rapids" 

 of Red River. In 1805 Sibley learned of but two or three women be- 

 longing to this tribe, who made their homes in French families on the 

 Ouachita. Some, however, settled with the Tunica south of Marks- 

 ville, and it was not until 1932 that the last individual known to have 

 Avoyel blood passed away. 



Avoyel population. — In 1700 Iberville met 40 warriors belonging to 

 this nation and Bienville considered that that was their full strength. 



